


Desert Songs

by ladymelodrama



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ;), Canon-Compliant, Dragons, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Nightmares, Red Waste, but sweet dreams too, more's the pity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23105488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymelodrama/pseuds/ladymelodrama
Summary: Missing scene that takes place between 1x10 - 2x02. The nightmares that Daenerys fears and the dreams that give her comfort.
Relationships: Jorah Mormont/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 24
Kudos: 38
Collections: Jorleesi Equinox Exchange -Spring 2020





	Desert Songs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bridgr6](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bridgr6/gifts).



> Further studies on this S2 concept:
> 
> "You must be their strength."
> 
> "As you are mine." 
> 
> ...because I think we deserve a few more examples of the "as you are mine" part :) 
> 
> To my giftee - darling, this went sadder than I expected. I'm hoping it fulfills the wishes of your first prompt (and a little of the fifth one too). But I definitely owe you some fluff in the future. Mwah! <3

_Come to me, all you stars, and look down upon your fallen daughter…_

Daenerys shivered in the desert night, as the odd prayer kept filling her head, in pale repetition, growing stronger as the horizon went black, all lingering hints of gold and red-violet banished below the horizon. The words weren’t spoken in her voice. They didn’t feel like her thoughts at all, but a ghost’s or phantom’s, whispering lost tales in the lonesome desert. 

She shivered again.

“Nights in the desert can play tricks in your head,” Ser Jorah had cautioned her earlier in the day, when she told him about the voice. Or rather, when he forced her to tell him what kept her up at night. He added, forcefully, “And there are more ghosts in this place than in Old Valyria and the Smoking Sea. Pay no attention to any of them.”

“I’ll try,” she muttered to her knight, but gave him no firm promise.

Jorah was not wrong. The Red Waste was haunted. 

By desert winds that failed to blow themselves out during the day, winding through devilgrass, red dust and broken stone. The winds wailed and cried across the wasteland by day, seeking out open cave mouths and crumbling rock ledges. The breeze played tricks and echoed through the barren places, taking turns laughing and crying, like vagrant children lost in the wilderness. More than once, Daenerys had turned towards gentle sobs to find no one there.

Just swirling dust and dry grasses swaying. A flash of silver steel and a toddler with black hair crawling in the brush, a witch woman laughing—

“Come away from there, princess,” Jorah reached out, taking her arm, holding her back when she was tempted to step towards those illusions. His voice shattered them quickly and she looked up at him, sun-tanned and broad, his brow creased with worry, and wondered if he saw ghosts in the dust too.

At twilight, when they made camp, the wind finally hushed, bedding down for the night. But the silence was short-lived and newer hauntings filled the quiet—the strange, unearthly cries of hatchling dragons broke into song. Three baby dragons, born from stone eggs and raging flames, were singing. But it was an eerie melody, untested in this wasteland for more than a thousand years. 

The song thrilled Daenerys, but it scared her too. For she heard that song even when the dragons weren’t singing, just as she heard voices in the night. And they all competed for space in her head—songs, cries, prayers, vows.

_I will take what is mine, in fire and blood._

_Our enemies will die screaming!_

Brave words for the living. But what good were brave words in the land of the dead?

The dragons slept now, curled up together in alternating stripes of black, green and gold, resting and breathing steadily in the wooden crate that Rakharo had cobbled together for them, to keep out prying claws and the sniffing interest of lupine creatures, wolves and wild dogs, who wandered the desert after the sun went down. 

The dragons slept soundly but they might wake again soon, especially if Daenerys remained so restless. Only two days old, they seemed to sense her every mood.

She hadn’t been able to sleep for two nights straight. Not since the morning she’d emerged from Khal Drogo’s burnt pyre, in smoke and haze, with those baby dragons cradled to her naked breast. 

She tried to sleep. Each night she lay down with the others and closed her eyes. But as soon as she closed her eyes, she opened them again. There was no helping it. Her mind spun on the oddest fixations, all those many voices in her head buzzing and requesting audience. Some she recognized and some she didn’t. 

_Moon of my life, you have failed me…_

_Look what you’ve done. You woke the dragon, little sister. And dragons burn._

_I won’t watch you burn…_

_Come to me, all you stars, and take pity on your fallen daughter…_

This night, after once again tossing and turning on the hard, rocky ground, she’d finally given up and climbed the short distance from their sad, patchwork gathering of threadbare tents to stand alone on a nearby speck of hill, barren and sparse, overlooking a wasted country of dead fields, dead rivers and dead cities. All dead.

_Are these the Night Lands? Are we all dead too?_

Her eyes drifted up from the desert plains. The night was always so clear in the Red Waste, chilled and terrible, with ten thousand stars scattered across the canopy of the sky, like white pearls and silver beads thrown into black water. The scarlet comet of day had changed color, bleeding snow white at midnight. 

Looking up, she searched for her reflection in that black water, finding nothing at all.

_You’re not a star. You’re a dragon. And the stars fall for dragons. What more would you ask of us? Go and seek your answers elsewhere._

She tried not to cry, using her fingers to wipe away whatever nonsense was tempting to stain her cheeks. Her hand shook a little and she couldn’t tell if it was from cold or weariness. She set her teeth, pressing her lips together firmly and breathing through her nose. The tears were useless, worthless things, and likely just a physical reaction to not sleeping for the past couple days. 

She was so tired. She’d been tired her entire life.

If she cried, she would show herself as a weak and broken thing. And how could she possibly be a weak and broken thing? It was impossible now. She’d emerged from a raging fire alive, unhurt, unburnt, untouched. With _dragons_ at her breast. She couldn’t be weak. She couldn’t be broken. By emerging from that fire, she’d given up the right to be weak or broken or sad or tired forever. 

Even in the middle of the night, with no one else to see but the stars.

She’d almost slipped earlier, feeling faithless saltwater sting at her eyes as she ate their sad dinner, some chunks of brown meat in a bowl, washed down with water that tasted like dust. Her limbs were so tired, it had been difficult to raise that bowl to her lips. And she worried if she continued this way, she wouldn’t be able to fool anyone.

“You keep tears inside and the grief can’t escape. It will fester like wound,” Irri warned her, just a few hours ago, with sympathy, however misplaced. Kindness was etched into her handmaiden’s dark brown eyes. Daenerys said nothing in reply but Irri nodded to her mistress, although with less confidence than in past days, “It is known.”

Irri’s confidence in known things had wavered. There was no surprise in this, as the Dothraki girl had added a daily chore to her list that she never could have imagined—helping Daenerys feed baby dragons by hand. 

What was known? What was true? Irri had watched Daenerys walk into a fire and she’d seen her emerge from the ashes—unscathed, unburnt, like a phoenix bird in a Volantene fairy tale. 

Or like a dragon. A _living_ dragon.

Irri was sleeping now, huddled beneath rags and scraps of fabric, hiding from wind and sand, together with the others. Daenerys almost wished sleeplessness on all of them, so she would have someone to talk to. Except…the others wouldn’t talk to her. Not yet. They were too afraid of her. They were too afraid of what she’d done. Of what she’d brought back into the world.

There was magic in it. Madness too. Daenerys wasn’t at all sure that she could control either. The magic or the madness. And she wondered and she worried and she festered from the inside out.

Irri was right. It was grief that threatened to spill down her tears. But not the grief that Irri likely believed it to be—grief for her dead child, grief for her dead husband. The grief that the others would feel. The grief that an ordinary person would feel when faced with such tragic losses.

_You are no ordinary woman. Your dreams come true._

Khal Drogo and Rhaego were buried back on the road, leagues away. She turned hard and cold at the thought of both of them, her skin prickling as if she were growing scales. What good were they to her now? Khal Drogo’s promises had turned to ashes. Rhaego, her son, had not drawn a single breath. She had to leave them behind. Or join them.

No, this was grief for herself. For Daenerys knew—oh, she knew now—there was no going back. What she’d done had set her on a course that she couldn’t turn away from. Not ever. Not even if she wanted to. 

_Good_ , said the dragon that stirred within her, claws stretching, wings unfurling, planning hot vengeance and playing at red anger.

 _I just want to go home_ , said the young girl, Dany herself, who was now locked in a cage made of melted iron swords, her tears not yet dry on her pale cheeks. She begged, with hands clasped together, _Please, can we just go home?_

Daenerys swallowed hard and shivered, for a third time. She was dressed scantily, in those Dothraki skins that sufficed in the hot sun of a desert afternoon. They didn’t suffice now. As soon as the sun sank beneath the western horizon, the desert turned bitter and cold, without any dark soil, foliage or forest to soak up the warmth of the day and keep it close in the night.

In this, if nothing else, she was a dragon. She was a creature of fire, and felt even the slightest chill as frost burns against her bare skin. Her teeth would chatter if she stayed on this hill much longer.

She didn’t hear him approach. 

“Here, _Khaleesi_ ,” Ser Jorah came up the hill behind her, setting a white pelt around her shoulders gently. 

The hrakker, with all its white lion’s fur, fit over her shoulders snugly. He helped her gather her silver-blonde hair to one side, as she kept the hood down and her long hair free. Jorah’s hands gripped both her shoulders for a moment before pulling them away, thinking she’d want to go back to her solitary vigil.

“No,” she spun and reached back, grabbing at one of his weathered hands before he could leave her presence. She pulled him back, to stand beside her. She asked, “Stay?”

Jorah wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t afraid of her and he wasn’t afraid of what she’d done. His fears had been spent on what came before. Those words he spoke beside the pyre were still ringing in her ears, competing for space with the others.

_Don’t ask me to stand aside as you climb on that pyre…I won’t watch you burn._

_Is that what you fear?_

She kissed him beside the fire. Her lips had grazed his bearded cheek, just at the edge of his soft mouth, and she could still taste his skin if she licked her lips. Even now, two nights later. Every scent, every detail of the pyre would stay with her until her last breath. 

Would he remember as long? She wanted to know, but was too afraid to ask.

But he stayed with her, as she requested, a silent but strong presence. She kept his hand clutched in hers, just to know he was there, as her gaze returned to the stars above. Out of the corner of her eye, she knew he was looking at her, watching her curiously. Where his fingers interlaced with hers, she felt his hand impart warmth that spread through her veins, curling around her tense muscles. 

_He’ll take us home_ , the girl in her head insisted, seeing her chance. _He’ll keep us safe._

 _He’ll tame you_ , the dragon argued, still pacing restlessly, snorting fire. _He’ll hold you back._

Daenerys closed her eyes briefly, wanting the voices to stop. _Please…_

“You can’t sleep again,” Jorah said, after they’d stood in silence for some time. It was no question.

“No,” she answered, with her eyes still closed. She risked much, telling him more, but the girl in her head was being insistent. Whispering, hoping, begging. And she would win at least one battle this night. The girl could be as stubborn as the dragon sometimes. Daenerys admitted to her knight, “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Why?” he wondered, his voice raw with concern. For her, for the storm he knew she was fighting. Alone, in a place unseen.

“Because if I sleep, I’ll dream,” she replied. “And if I dream, I’ll…”

“Nightmares?” he guessed. 

She nodded, not wanting to divulge the details of her worst ones. Viserys holding her down, grasping, scratching at her skin. That first night with Khal Drogo, a flood of fear and pain and her tears streaming down her cheeks, falling in a puddle on horseskin. The jointed limbs of ragged shadows dancing in the tent with Mirri Maz Duur, grim monsters pulling her baby from her breast and tearing him apart, releasing graveworms and black flies, all with haunting songs that sounded like dragons and the desert winds mixed together. 

And then fire and blood, fire and blood. In the dream, she would reach up towards that comet in the sky, as it cut its long swath in the cosmos. With both hands, she ripped the tear open and the sky rained red. She was bathed in it. Lifting her hands, she saw raw flesh and rivulets of scarlet.

At the memory of that dream, a single tear unmoored from beneath her closed eyelids and rolled down her cheek, falling into the sand at her feet. 

“Come,” Jorah commanded gently, tugging at her hand. Despite his gentle tone, she nearly bristled on impulse. Jorah _never_ commanded anything of her. He counseled, he advised, but he never commanded. It was not his place, it was not his right.

And yet, she was so tired, she couldn’t think straight. He took a step down from that lonesome hill, dragging her with him. The timbre in his voice matched the strength in his grip, leaving no room for argument. He said, “Come with me now.”

She did as he commanded. She found great relief in following a direction of someone else, instead the muddled madness of her own head. And she found even greater relief when she discovered what he intended.  
He led her back towards their sad camp, picking a bare spot against the squat cliff side, slightly secluded from the wind and away from the others, so there would be no question, no prying eyes. Except for the distant stars and moon above, gently washing out the cliffside in white-silver. As he crouched, laying out a blanket on the sand, she stood nearby, watching his hands throw it flat, while shaking her head slightly.

“I’m not going to sleep,” she insisted, adamant.

“I know,” he answered softly, without pressing the matter.

But still, he sank down to take a spot on that makeshift bedroll, bracing his strong back against the cliff face. He pulled her down with him, to rest in his arms, the cushion of his body far more giving than the hard ground. She found herself relenting, willingly joining him, sliding into his embrace so naturally, as if she’d done the same a hundred times before. 

She remembered how he helped her off the white mare, after those first long days of riding with the horde. Her arms had fallen around his broad shoulders, the curves of her body easily fitting against his tall frame as he pulled her down from the saddle. She felt relief that day too. As if time suddenly slowed, as if his simple embrace could heal all her many bruises and sores. She clung to him, hands around his neck, feeling safe…

But then her handmaidens rushed forward and led her away. The spell was broken nearly before it began.

Daenerys had no bruises now. None that anyone could see. But there were no handmaidens to rush forward and lead her away either. Irri and Doreah were sleeping soundly. And who else was there to argue? She let herself sink against him, craving the closeness of another person, closing her eyes as her cheek found the spot just over his heart.

She knew that if she woke up in her knight’s arms the next morning, the others might talk about it. But that was nothing new. Even when Khal Drogo was alive, there were whispers in the camp, at least among some of the women. From the very beginning, they’d said Daenerys was close to the Westerosi knight. Perhaps _too_ close.

The night that Daenerys realized she was carrying Rhaego, Irri stepped outside to ask Ser Jorah and Rakharo to fetch something more palatable to eat. Irri seemed happier with the news than Daenerys herself and told Daenerys that she would bring great honor to their Khal, kissing the backs of Daenerys’s hands before slipping out the flap of fabric that served as the tent’s entrance.

But Doreah was not Dothraki, and as soon as Irri left the tent, the Lysene handmaiden gave Daenerys a sly, mischievous look. She pressed her lips together for a long moment, glancing down at Daenerys’s still flat belly before asking her mistress, “Is it Drogo’s?”

“Of course,” Daenerys had replied immediately, almost indignant. She could have struck Doreah for even saying those words. But she was distracted, knowing that the only other name that Doreah could possibly consider was the same name that rushed into Daenerys’s head without being summoned. Still, she played dumb, “Who else?”

Doreah said nothing more, but her intelligent eyes flickered again, head nodding towards the tent flap that Irri had just exited through, out to where Ser Jorah was nodding to Irri, letting her know that he’d have the boys butcher a goat for supper.

“No,” Daenerys denied it flatly, silently scolding Doreah for even voicing such a scandalous notion. The former bed slave from Lys just shrugged her slim shoulders, not caring so much either way. She’d told Daenerys once that she’d be more than willing to jump into Ser Jorah’s bed, if he ever asked her.

_If he ever looked in any direction other than yours…_

This nettled Daenerys, although she was unwilling to confront Doreah on the subject further, knowing that too many denials sometimes had the force of looking like guilt. But, of course, it was untrue. They had never…he would never…the thought had never even entered her…

Well, Khal Drogo was dead, his ashes spread far and wide by desert winds. And she didn’t care what they thought now. At least not tonight.

As she lay against Jorah’s chest, she found herself relaxing, all those hours without sleep catching up to her, memories and voices all quieting to a low hum, as if a heavy door had been shut against them and locked. The way his chest thumped below her ear was so steady. The way his arm held her tight against him was unfailing.

 _Here we…lay._ Giddy with weariness, she almost chuckled on the twist of his family words. But she was already drifting off, within only a few minutes of lying down beside him. She felt his free hand pull the hrakker pelt further up her bare shoulder to make sure she was warm enough, his rough, weather-worn skin brushing against her with surprising care. Her cheek was flush against his chest, her eyes closed, her mind…

_Hush the night. Hush the stars._

And soon, she was asleep. For the first time since before the fire.

Her dreams played quietly, leaving her alone most of the night. All nightmares stayed behind that locked door in her head. The dragon and the girl made peace together and signed a truce, at least for the night.

There was one dream that came to her softly, unobtrusively—she wouldn’t remember it by morning. But in the night, she found herself clinging to the man who held her, curling against him while trying to hold onto it for just a little while longer.

She dreamed she was in a garden, lush with golden sunshine and green things. She was sitting on her knees, digging in black earth. The sound of the garden spade in her hands made a soft scraping sound against the earth, as she dug small holes in waiting beds before transplanting flowers from the wicker basket beside her. 

They were pretty, foreign flowers with fragile petals that tremored in a light sea breeze coming off the coast. Somewhere below her gardens, she could hear the rhythm of the incoming tide. It was a familiar sound, as her bedroom in Illyrio’s palace had faced the sea.

But this was not Illyrio’s palace, nor his gardens. This was someplace else entirely. 

“Do you still pray for home, _Khaleesi_?” Jorah sat near her, on the short grass, watching her work, twirling one of her daisies between his fingers. He reached forward and slipped the stem behind her ear. As he pulled back, his fingers trailed the length of one of her silver-blonde locks absently.

She smiled at him. 

Outside the dream, a hint of a smile lingered on her lips, as her fingers were curling against his yellow shirt, balling up the fabric beneath her grasp. In the dream, she laid her palm flat on the ground between them, knuckles curling in the sun-warmed grass, grin widening as she beckoned him forward to trade a few kisses with her. He smiled back, as the request was an easy one, familiar— 

Just before their lips met, she said simply, “Home is here, Jorah.”


End file.
